Making the Most of Madrid

By Daniela, Tufts 1+4 Participant

It has been nearly seven weeks since I arrived in Madrid, and I am just where I need to be. Madrid moves slowly, but there is not a moment that goes by that is not infused with energy. It is actually a bit confusing at times, because so much is happening but it happens during a long period of time. Madrid breathes slowly, but has a quick heartbeat

Park adventures with Eva (resident of Montoya).
Park adventures with Eva (resident of Montoya).

I have noticed a similarity in pace at my placement. At the Montoya house, the girls take their time with everything they do. Yet while we may be spending an hour on one activity, that hour is jam packed with little moments that are crucial. The service occurs in those little moments. Those little moments are what transcend the work from simply lending a hand to truly investing. Being at the house for a few hours everyday doesn’t provide much time for activities, but it provides a plethora of precious moments to learn from. It is also important to remember there is work that can be done outside of my time at my placement. For example, I have begun to write down the given circumstances of each girl in the home. Who they are, where they come from, and why they are part of the foundation. This has proven helpful in terms of approaching each girl individually.

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Velping? Ok!

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By Madeline, Tufts 1+4 Participant

What does it mean to volunteer?

I recently found a second volunteer opportunity here in Madrid. The NGO where I’m working in the mornings is called Serve the City. It works as a match maker for big corporations and NGOs. Once Serve the City establishes a relationship between the two, there is a newfound responsibility given to both in order to develop a stronger community through service and collaboration. In the U.S. and Great Britain, this is implemented as CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility Policies. Here in Spain that is a foreign term. Serve the City is looking to change that.

Additionally, they work as a database of volunteers for NGOs and vice versa. The project I am currently working on is the Facebook page for an app called Velping. The app, that is currently being developed, is for volunteers to be able to log their hours of service and see what kind of social change they are initiating. They can receive feedback from the NGOs that they are helping too. My project is to find meaningful and intriguing content to feed through the Facebook to get people thinking about why they should volunteer in general.

For me, that is a great question. Why am I volunteering? Why did I decide to fly hundreds of miles away from home and live in a foreign country so I could spend a year of my time serving others? I’m lucky because in exchange for my 6-10 hours a day given to foundations – for incredible causes might I add – I get to live in a foreign country and experience Europe at a very young age. But then in addition, volunteering gives me so much more.

1. When you volunteer, you choose. You choose where, when, and how you will work keeping in mind the needs of your community and the organizations.

2. You gain experiences and memories. From business and marketing skills to child psychology to cooking skills, there are experiences in everything when it comes to volunteering. You gain skills, build a resume, and take home a piece of good and pure memory to hold onto.

3. No matter how big or small, you make a difference. A very interesting thing I was told when coming here was “this is a chance to see how much of yourself you can give without seeing an immediate impact.” This is hard. I feel it everyday that I struggle with my girls or my schedule is not perfectly ideal. But at the end of the day I’m happy because I know eventually I will make a difference.

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New Settings

by Zoe, Tufts 1+4 Participant

Exactly one week ago I left my temporary home in Curitiba. It was here where, although I ultimately really enjoyed spending time with my host family, I experienced my first “low” (clearly shown in my previous post). Luckily, almost immediately after posting, I made it out of the trough and began to feel much more comfortable in my new setting. My temporary host family, Elaine, Julia, and Henrique, lived in an apartment building in an area of Curitiba called Cristo Rei. They were amazing and really welcomed me into their family. I experienced various new, Brazilian things, including my first feijoada, a huge gathering of extended family and friends with a ton of food.

The actual feijoada is rice and black beans cooked in pork, with various different toppings and peeled oranges on the side to help with digestion (that’s when you know). It’s a big tradition in Brazil, and one of my Curitiba family’s favorites.

zoe2Although I ended up having a relatively positive experience in Curitiba, I was definitely ready to move to my permanent community, get out of the city, experience new things, breath some fresh air, and live freely. I was ready to start my life as I will know it for the next 7 months. My life in Imbituba, Santa Catarina, Brazil.

zoe3My house is on this big hill at the southern end of Praia da Ribanceira, a beach about 5 kilometers north of the town of Imbituba, Santa Catarina. The neighborhood in which I live, called Vila Esperança, is situated on both the hill and the sand dunes, and is home to about 1,000 people. My host parents, Anne and Laureci, both grew up in this village and all of their family members live on the hill with us. In Vila Esperança, if you’re not family, you’re friends. Everyone knows everyone, something completely new to me after having lived in such urban and suburban settings my entire life.

zoe4Everything’s different here.

  1. My family speaks absolutely no English whatsoever, so it’s 100% Portuguese all day everyday.
  2. Sleeping until 7:30 is considered sleeping in and going to bed after 10:30 is relatively unheard of.
  3. Lunch is the main meal of the day, and it’s usually eaten with extended family and friends (especially on Sundays). We have coffee in the late afternoon, and rarely have dinner.
  4. There are bugs. Everywhere.
  5. The beach is right outside my front door.
  6. There are more cats and dogs than mentally possible to keep track of.
  7. When you look down at the ocean from up on the hill, or when you drive on the road along the beach, or basically any time you look at the water, there are whales. Without fail.
  8. Everyone eats a ton of seafood.

zoe5I love it. The papaya and coffee every morning for breakfast. The walk down the hill to the beach, followed by runs along the beach, followed by sitting on the wooden whale-watching platform built off the side of the hill above the water, followed by the steep, thigh-killing hike back up the hill and back home. The random visits made by various family members. The tiny bananas. The seafood risotto. The nighttime drives along the beach with Anne, Laureci, and Dyllan, blasting and singing Dyllan’s favorite (North) American music like Timber and Whistle. He knows all the words even though he has absolutely no clue what any of them mean. It’s all so great. Even the fishing. When Laureci asked me if I wanted to go fishing for shrimp (camarão), he didn’t mention that it entailed going thigh deep into this lagoon separated from the ocean by a sand bank…when it was an hour after sunset and raining. Oh yeah, shrimp only come out at night. I didn’t know that until I was knee deep in water. Literally.

zoe6Anyway, long story short, I’ve absolutely loved my first week in Vila Esperança, Imbituba, and feel so comfortable that I can’t believe it’s been only a week. I can’t wait for what the next six and a half months brings, and whether it be ups or downs, I’m so ready to take it head on and let it change me for the better.

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The Art of ‘Chill’

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by Abigail, Tufts 1+4 Participant

Anyone that knew me before I left on this grand adventure probably wouldn’t associate the word ‘chill’ with me at all. Not freaking out, not stressing, not overthinking, and just going with the flow is not something I regularly practiced, and I honestly thought it was because I couldn’t. But after a month and three days in Leon, Nicaragua, where I’m thousands of miles away from my home, my lifestyle, and my comfort zone, I’ve learned that the most important thing you can do in any and all situations is have a little ‘chill.’ About 90% of the time, I haven’t a clue what’s going on, things didn’t go as planned, or I’ve never done what I have to do. I’ve quickly learned that they only way to survive this, learn from this, and just have fun is to just stay as cool as possible.

And yeah, that can be really hard. But I can safely say that after only a month, I am a proficient practitioner of ‘chill.’ That’s right people, Abigail Barton now knows how to chill. I don’t mean to brag but I’m getting pretty good at it….And I’m certainly going to be a professional at the end of these nine months. I’m happy that I’m learning this skill before I continue on with college and life. It’s a lot more fun! And if it’s not necessarily fun, it has enabled me to attack life with tenacity, with fearlessness.

A lot of the times I just find myself laughing at how little I know about the world, specifically the culture here in Leon. For some reason it just seems hilarious, like ‘okay, I’m actually here, I’m actually in a crowd of people at a festival and we’re all running and laughing and I have NO CLUE WHY but it’s kind of fun!’ Sometimes, though, it’s just too confusing to find funny. Or sometimes I’m too frustrated. I have to be really conscious of myself, and how I’m reacting. I constantly tell myself that it’s okay and it’s just how it is. Just going with it is the only way I’m going to discover the culture, and realize how special it is that I get a whole year to do this. All I have to do is breathe, smile, and continue forward with as much openness as possible.

It feels like I’ve been here forever, but at the same time like I just arrived. It feels like I’ve done so much already, yet there is so much that remains untouched. One of my favorite things to do so far is just go exploring, with other fellows or just by myself. I love seeing things, tasting them, smelling them. I get just as excited when I discover something drastically different as when I discover something uncannily similar to the culture back home. I’ve lived in the same small town my entire life, so the concept of living in a city is new to me. I’m kind of addicted to it, like the kid who doesn’t eat candy at home and goes the craziest at birthday parties. I love that there is always more to experience, streets I haven’t walked, food I haven’t tasted.

So far, I’ve taken a salsa class, tried Zumba, started a painting class, visited the art museum, walked the top of the cathedral, gone to the movies, sat in the park, eaten ice cream, cake, and crepes, visited with the other fellows, and more. These things have been fun, a little crazy, and adventurous. These are the things I put on Instagram. But I’ve experienced so much more that might not make for the best social media post, but have been just as important.

I’ve learned (still learning) to live with a new family. My host family is only three people, like my family back home. I have an eight year old host brother, and we both have to get used to the concept of siblings! I do laundry by hand. I make my own breakfast, like I do at home, but instead of toast I usually find myself having gallo pinto and an egg. Whenever my host family does anything, I go along with them, even if I don’t know what we’re going to do. I’ve gone to processions, festivals, supermarkets, and children’s birthday parties this way. I really love it! It’s hard to fit into a different family rhythm, but I expected nothing less. It’s things like watching my host brother’s face light up as we put out candles for the Virgin Mercedes, playing truth or dare with the birthday girl at her party, making an altar at my host grandmother’s house, and watching multitudes of parades (September is a big month for holidays here) that make me so grateful for being so immersed.

I’ve also been working at my partner agency Las Tias. The Association was started by a group of women in the market half a block from my house in the 1980s. What was at first a little corner for kids of the market to eat has become two locations that serve approximately seventy children and adolescents. I work at the adolescent location, and at first, that really terrified me. I’m still an adolescent myself, only about a year older than some of the kids that attend Las Tias. How could I be in this position of responsibility and supervision when I’m the same age? I still struggle with this question. However, I have found my age to be advantageous. I can be a friend to everyone, and become a source of support that is less formal. We talk about music a lot, or how to french braid. Mainly, I help with English and math homework. Some kids need more help than others, and some are less afraid to ask me than others. I made friendship bracelets one day, and taught one kid how to play chess. One morning we went to a parade for San Geronimo. Honestly, there is also a lot of down time. When the kids don’t have homework, there isn’t much to help with until lunch, or until the end of the day. Sitting and chatting, or playing on their phones is common. Since I have to think of a community development process for Amigos, I’ve begun to mill over what we can do to fill in this time with something fun and motivational for these kind and bright kids. It’s a daunting task. I still don’t know my role at the project very well, and feel useless at times. The key is being proactive, something I’ve realized and am working on improving. I am at the right host agency, and I’m confident of that. I just need a little time.

I am happy to say that I haven’t lost the excitement or anticipation that I had on the plane coming here. I constantly wonder what my day will bring. Many of my original apprehensions have been alleviated, but many new ones have emerged. Things are changing fast and so am I.

Baby Bugio

baby bugioby Gabriel, Tufts 1+4 Participant

Several weeks ago I walked out of an airport in Curitiba, Brazil with mixed feelings of doubt, excitement, curiosity and homesickness. I have experienced a lot since then, yet those same feelings persist. As I crossed the threshold into a new country, the atmosphere felt surreal. I was dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, expecting to encounter sun and warmth. Instead the temperature was barely 50 degrees Fahrenheit, with clouds heavy with rain hovering above. I, along with the five other Tufts Fellows, headed to a hostel where we were able to climb a rock wall, race on a rope bridge/obstacle course and go on a small zip-line. After spending another night at a different hostel, we were promptly sent off to our host families for a three day weekend including the Brazilian Independence Day.

I met this transition with equal amounts of anticipation and anxiety, thinking I would be mentally shocked. I quickly began to realize that these feelings were unwarranted as I was welcomed into the home of my host mother Selma and her twenty year old son, Marcelo. Selma is an excellent cook and made sure that I had snacks, delicious meals and my favorite foods (ice cream of course) available to me. She speaks enough English for limited communication with me, and her son, who completed a foreign exchange program in the United States, is fluent in English. Most weekdays, for the two weeks which I spent in this city, I made a short trip to SESI International School to take a Portuguese class and a culture class with the other fellows from Global Citizen Year. In short, between the fact that I lived close enough to only take a single, simple bus everyday and had a candy bowl repetitively refilled on my nightstand, I lived in comfort. During this period of my experience in Brazil, I could not help but to repetitively think, “what the heck am I even doing here?”

Two days ago I boarded a bus which brought me to the island of Florianopolis, and my life until April 2. I met my new host family, who speak practically no English, and we proceeded to my small community. Though I had been told that Lagoa da Conceição was a tourist destination, I was unprepared for its beauty. Right down the street from my house is the lagoon, along with all of its shops and restaurants. Partially surrounding the lagoon are picturesque mountains begging to be climbed. A short walk past the lagoon and over the following ridge brings you to the ocean.  Sand dunes towered above as I walked along the road to the beach, dune-boarders descending their vast expanses. Directly within their view, surfers paddled among the towering, chilly, antarctic waves. This all seemed glorious, but I was still wondering, “what am I even doing here?”

This morning I entered R3 Animal, and that question was answered. Before I even passed through the “authorized personnel only” gates, I could hear the calls of the animals within. R3 Animal partners with the Brazilian Environmental Military Police to rescue, rehabilitate and reintegrate animals into their natural habitat. Nearly all of these animals have been victims of illegal trafficking or human action. During my first three hours here I met an amazing number of animals from a variety of species. So many questions bubbled in my mind but so few Portuguese words surfaced to be able to form them.  I was in awe to observe and get to see some of the inhabitants including owls, penguins, a baby ocelot, a baby seal, tortoises, LOTS of birds, many monkeys, some kind of tiny baby marsupials just removed from their injured mother’s pouch, a blind fawn, etc. I was in heaven. I was even able to hold the ridiculously cute baby Bugio (Howler Monkey). Though the aforementioned feelings I felt upon arriving here are still present, I am beyond thankful for this opportunity I have been given.